This week I wanted to tackle a few different decorative accessories for my learning project. I started off by trying to make a bow tie that I found on a blog from Feedly. I found this blog to be interesting because it did not have a video or written instructions on how to make the bow tie, but it included a diagram, which can be seen on the left.

This pattern challenged me a bit because I did not remember what the symbols meant, so I guessed. I remembered that I had to make a magic circle to start the bow tie and then I chained 6 loops. Then I thought that I had to make 6 treble crochet stitches in the magic circle, but once I was almost done the bow tie, I looked at it and it looked a bit disfigured. So it ended up looking like the picture on the right.

To figure out how I did it wrong I had to look back at my previous blog posts about the abbreviations and symbols used in crochet patterns. By looking back at the “Crochet

Cheat Sheet” and refreshing my memory of the crochet symbols, I learned that what I really needed to do was do 6 double treble crochet stitches, instead of just 6 treble stitches. By doing double treble stitches, it made a longer stitch, which then made the bow look more well rounded on each end. These bow ties could be used as accessories for hats, headbands, clothing, baby items and even hair pins. My end results are on the left.

Next, I chose to do a flower as an accessory that can also be used for hats, headbands, clothing, baby items, and hair pins. I found my resources from a cite called “All Free Crochet”. On this cite it has ideas for different types of hats and it includes a video on how to make a flower to add to your hat. Making this flower was similar to the bow tie because it uses a magic circle to start.

I was glad that there was an instructional video with this resource, but as I was watching the video, I found it hard to keep up, so I had to keep pausing the video, going back a few steps, and then try to keep up once I started it again. I made the purple flower first and the blue flower second, so I think that the blue flower looks a little bit better than the purple one, but this just shows that no one is perfect when they are first learning a new skill. Practice does make perfect. 🙂

Another video that I found online shows how to make a simple flower, but it goes a lot slower than the first video I found. The flower also ends up being a little bit bigger than the one in the first video. If you want an instructional video that is at a slower pace, then this “How To – Crochet a Simple Flower version 2 – Absolute Beginners” video is the right one for you. I hope you enjoyed reading about me getting through the bumps along the way in my learning project.

Next week I will try a 3D rose and start finding patterns for a baby blanket that I will be making for my sister who is expecting in July.